Making friends with The Manuals

So, the manuals and I haven't been getting along. I ignore them, they taunt me with their correct procedures hidden deep within library jargon. So today I'm going to spend an hour (that's right, one whole hour of manual-related fun) reading the manuals, and recording any fun facts I might find along the way. Here goes:

General Stuffs

• N means Australian stacks! I have finally unravelled the mystery of N!
• Octavo means normal sized book.
• There's a stack directory! Praise be!

Call Numbers

• Books by or about Shakespeare have a special classification system. That's pretty awesome.
• The number of digits after a deciaml point in a Dewey call number can only be eight, but you keep the full number in the 082 field (you break it at a 'logical point' - if it can't be broken and still make sense, you just shorten it as much as possible).
• Literature of New Zealand can use the NZ prefix before the Dewey.
• Captain Cook and Lonely Planet also have special rules...

Cutter Numbers

• Criticisms of a writer are given special Cutter treatment (see section C.3.2 of the end processing manual).
• Hyphenated names are treated as if they were one word.
• Names with prefixes are also treated as one word (i.e Vanbrugh), but with the prefix 'de' just follow what's been written in the main entry (ignore capitalistion).

Phew! That's only 8 pages in to the first manual! I will save more learnings for tomorrow.